Madder Things Have Happened, Right?
by Daelena
Summary: Hatter's reflection on his life as a result of meeting Alice. *Written for a Creative Writing class*


**__****I wrote this for my Creative Writing class and wanted to put it up. I took some liberties with Hatter but I tried to stay as in character as I possibly could. After all, I really liked the Alice miniseries. SyFy did an excellent job it (and the Alice/Hatter relation. *squee*). Anyway, I've rambled on and on enough. Now go read, review, and enjoy!**

_**Disclaimer: I own absolutely nothing. **_

White rabbits should never be followed.

He is a simple man with very simple tastes. Honestly, give him a nice cup of deliciously strong tea and he would be good for hours. Throw in a biscuit or a piece of toast with some raspberry jam, and he would quite literally go to town. Given that he is a simple man, it really should go without saying that he had absolutely no desire to be an enormously rich man, much to his now-former business partner's chagrin.

As long as he and his loved ones – especially _her_, she is his top priority now – are comfortable and well-proved for, everything is right in his universe.

Family was important.

Everything can be solved over a nice cup of tea, his mother had always told him. Never leave home without your hat, his delightfully crazy great-granduncle – the one who had actually _known_ the Legend – would add on after that, tipping his absurdly large top hat over his ridiculously bright orange hair.

Both pieces of advice were sage. He is still alive, right?

As a rule of thumb before, he had kept his head down and did his jobs (both of them) with due diligence. Until he had met her, he had been able to play both sides of the coin – card! – and that had kept him alive this long. People had depended on him for survival and he couldn't let them down.

He rather likes his head. He is attached to it, in fact, and not just in the physical sense. It is a nice head. He's had all of his life and he doesn't want to change that now.

Stupid white rabbit. Stupid oyster-girl.

White rabbits should never be followed.

They were the harbingers of trouble. They always inevitably led to the Queen and she could be quite bipolar at time. No one wanted to catch her when she was in a foul mood.

Everyone worth their teacup – and their salt – knew that one.

So what, in the name of the Cheshire Cat, had possessed him to throw caution – and all self-respect, save his hat – to the wind and help her.

In retrospect, it honestly wasn't his fault that she was so damn cute, especially in that blue dress of hers. He was a sucker for hopeless cases and cute girls. He was a guy – a damn good-looking one, at that, if he said so himself – and she had been an supposedly available (and attractive) girl. That was probably part of the reason why he actually decided to go against the grain (and his usual pattern) and go out on a limb. She was something special, he could tell and she made him a better person.

His father used to say that he was the bad seed – egg – sheep – hat – of the family and would eventually bring shame to the family name. Oh, if only the man could see him now, that assessment might change. His life was so much better now – he had her.

In his not-so-humble opinion, it was all totally worth it.

The sun flared red over the horizon as it dipped lower and lower, flashing through the window. His train of thought abruptly changed tracked.

Night has always been his favorite time of day. All of the most important events of his life (save those two critical, albeit unexpected meetings) happened at night. He had been born at night. He had acquired his first tea set and his shop at night. He had made the biggest decision of his life and stepped into a whole new world at night. He had met her mother for the first time at night.

Still, white rabbits should never be followed.

Griffins, maybe. Dormice, most definitely. Cats, well that all depends on the cat. But white rabbits?

Hell no! They always led to trouble. Not unless you were a glutton for punishment and wanted to gamble for your head or your emotions. He never wants to have to make that choice ever again unless, of course, it has to do with her. Then, he supposed, it would be completely worth the risk.

But he was usually good at charming people.

He had made a good impression with her mother the first time he had met her (at that awful place, with those nasty doctor-people and the semi-nice nurse-ladies) when he had found her some tea. She thought he was sweet that first night when he had known her favorite kind of tea without even knowing or asking.

Bless his instincts and his great-granduncle for teaching him everything he knew.

Of course, those points went right out the window later – he was lucky his hat survived _that_ encounter without being chucked out as well.

Thank the Dodo he had managed to keep his hat at all.

Her mother had questioned him later about his hat – lovely, worn, comfortable as it were – with an incredulous look on her face. "It's awful ratty looking. You could get a new one," she had argued. (This was a few days after that wonderful reunion with her daughter and all brownie points he might have chalked up had evaporated.)

He would have been offended that his hat (and it was his favorite one at that) was being insulted if his Alice, his oyster-girl – his pearl actually, since oysters produced pearls and she was precious to him - hadn't spoken up to defend him and his hat. Seems she liked his hat just as much as he did, since she had run her hand through his hair, effectively messing up the hair that he had spent so long trying to tame in an effort to make a good impression, and put the article into its proper place.

He is a Hatter. He wears a hat. Maybe he isn't as mad as other members of his family – his orange-haired great-granduncle is living proof of that – but he does wear a hat and has a tea-drinking fetish.

White rabbits should never be followed.

But sometimes, if the right person follows a white rabbit down a rabbit hole (or through a mirror – a Looking Glass, she firmly interjects every time he tells the kids the story), it was okay. After all, madder things _have _happened.

**_Now go press that lovely little button that says 'Review.' Reviews = love. Author + love = productivity._**


End file.
